Wafaa and Hayat
dream of a better future and a city that is different from the one they live
in. Their vision on how to achieve this however is very different.

When the Lebanese
civil war broke out on the streets of Beirut in the mid 1970’s, it separated
the lives of its residents from one another by dividing the capital city in
two. Wafaa and Hayat both experienced the civil war as teenagers. Wafaa
actively participated on the barricades alongside the right-wing Christian
militia as one of the few young female fighters. Hayat from a Muslim Shiite
family and a little younger in age, mourned the deaths of her two older
brothers who joined the militia to protect the young sisters from the
harassment of armed groups nestled in their neighbourhood. Emotions of loss and
sacrifice resurface when her nephew Ali falls as a Hezbollah combatant fighting
ISIS in Abu Kamal, Syria at the end of 2018.

Some twenty-five
years later, Wafaa now physically worn down, is still loyal to her political
views. Guided by fear and mistrust of the other, she believes that a change is
possible only through division. Hayat on the other hand, finds comfort and hope
in the idea of a unified Beirut, where coexistence between the different ethnic
groups and sects remains the only remedy for an ailing nation.

In The Sea Between Us, we follow the lives of these two strong female protagonists Hayat and Wafaa, now with children of their own must face the challenging task of passing on the civil war’s violent legacy onto a new generation. In a world that feels more and more globally connected, the film takes on difficult questions to understand why the neighbourhoods of Beirut still feel walled in by invisible boundaries and whether forgiveness and reconciliation are possible in a country still broken over religious and political ideology.

We are pleased to announce that “The Sea Between Us” by Marlene Edoyan is competing in the Canadian Feature Category at the RIDM 2019!

Run to see it on November 22nd at 8:30 pm at the Cinéma du Parc and November 23rd at 3:30pm at La Cinémathèque québécoise.